Title: He Remembers
Author: Xanfan
Fandom: NCIS
Rating: R/Possibly NC-17
Pairing: Gibbs/DiNozzo
Summary: SLASH – He remembered some things that he wished he hadn't. This is a companion story to my other fic, ‘He Pretends.'
Spoilers: Pretty much the whole show up to Hiatus 2
Warnings: Slash M/M
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
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When it's over, he hands his gun and badge to his lead agent and walks away from it all. He heads to a former mentor who lives in an out of the way place in a foreign land. He hopes it will help with all the empty spaces in his memory. For all that he remembers, there is probably twice as much that he seems to have forgotten.
He thinks about all the things he doesn't know about his life as he lays awake at night, listening to the too quiet sounds that can only be found in off-the-beaten-path places. The sounds of nature and darkness that he never heard in D.C.
He remembers the bright white smile that first caught his attention; he believes it was in Baltimore. The owner of that smile once teased someone that he got hired at NCIS because of it. Gibbs remembers holding back a chuckle at the truth of that statement.
He has flashes of DiNozzo, looking at him expectantly, probably waiting for a ‘job well done.' It doesn't seem like his agent got a lot of those; instead he got a smack upside the back of his head. The man seemed to cherish those just as much as the praise.
He recalls feeling angry at everything and on the verge of burn out. When he was offered a warm body to hold, he took the warm body and so much more. He doesn't think he gave much, if anything, back.
Those green eyes had still looked at him expectantly, but they weren't waiting for a ‘job well done.' They were waiting for something else. At first he didn't know what it was. Then he remembered the look of expectation fading over time, replaced by resignation and self doubt, and he knew Tony had been looking for some small sign of affection. It probably could have been anything, even the smallest little thing, and his more-than-occasional lover would have been happy. All he would have had to do was hold him close, maybe give a lingering kiss that didn't necessarily end in sex.
But he did none of that. He remembers pushing Tony out the door as soon as he was done with him. Giving some lame excuse to walk him out. He wonders if he was trying to emphasize the fact that his bed partner wasn't a lover, someone who would get to stay the night.
He can't remember staying over at the other man's apartment either. He has planty of memories of being there. More than once, he'd followed his green-eyed man home and bent him over his own furniture, pounding the willing body to completion, then leaving when he was finished… but he doesn't have a single recollection of spending the night, or even lingering in the aftermath.
There were dinners at obscure restaurants where he was sure no one would remember seeing them together, always followed by parking in a really out of the way spot to get some teenage-like groping in. Even looked at in the most optimistic light, he doesn't think they qualified as ‘dates.'
He remembers the warm mouth on his body, the younger man looking so very hot on his knees. He hadn't told him that, though. He would just un-freeze the elevator and go back to work.
No matter how much he tries, he doesn't remember ever waking up with the man in his bed. No memories of making him breakfast and reading the paper together. Not even falling asleep with him in his arms.
He remembers a mysterious white powder and an illness that should have stayed in the Dark Ages. He recalls the blue-tinged lips and watching his agent cough up blood from plague-ravaged lungs.
He knows he ordered DiNozzo to live. And like any good agent, those orders were followed.
He saw the expectation come back into those green eyes, and then he saw it fade again over time. It didn't take the man as long to give up as it had the first time.
When their teammate died, he remembers seeing her blood sprayed across DiNozzo's face… and the split second fear that the blood was Tony's. He recalls the secret shame of feeling relieved when he realized it wasn't.
When he woke up in a hospital with no recent memories, just the still-new feeling of having lost his wife and child, he had almost refused to believe that so much time had passed. DiNozzo had known, without being told, that he was afraid of the unknown, the unremembered.
When Ziva had come in to prompt his memories, he knew there were things she hadn't told him, things she didn't know. At the time he wasn't sure what they were, he just knew they existed.
It wasn't until he had seen the total gut-wrenching heartbreak in Agent DiNozzo's green eyes as the younger man accepted the gun and badge that he had gotten his first real clue as to what they had been to each other. The actual memories of their ‘relationship' wouldn't surface until after he was gone.
He doesn't remember ever treating the man with tenderness. There are no recollections of anything outside of work or sex; two extremes, but no middle ground, and neither extended towards kindness or caring.
He hopes it's just another gap in his memory and not because those events didn't happen. He hates to think he had earned that second ‘b' in Gibbs, the one he always said stood for ‘bastard.'
And as he listens to crickets and swats at mosquitoes, he tries to believe he didn't systematically tear a man down to nothing.
He remembers a smiling green-eyed man who deserved way more than being treated like a convenient piece of ass. Who deserved to be held at night. Who should have had words of affection and love. Who needed someone to help wash off his friend's blood and hold him when he collapsed in the shower with grief.
He doesn't remember being the man DiNozzo needed him to be, the man he deserves. He hopes it isn't because he hadn't been.
When he wakes in the morning, Leroy Jethro Gibbs packs his bags and heads home. He hopes he isn't just the man he remembers being. And if he is, he doesn't want to be any more. And maybe… he'll get a chance to prove it.
Story Notes:
From Gibbs' point of view.
Author's Chapter Notes:
SLASH – He remembered some things that he wished he hadn’t. This is a companion story to my other fic, ‘He Pretends.’
Chapter End Notes:
From Gibbs' point of view.